Summary

We the Corporations chronicles the astonishing story of one of the most successful yet least well-known "civil rights movements" in American history. Hardly oppressed like women and minorities, business corporations, too, have fought since the nation's earliest days to gain equal rights under the Constitution--and today have nearly all the same rights as ordinary people.Exposing the historical origins of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, Adam Winkler explains how those controversial Supreme Court decisions extending free speech and religious liberty to corporations were the capstone of a centuries-long struggle over corporate personhood and constitutional protections for business. Beginning his account in the colonial era, Winkler reveals the profound influence corporations had on the birth of democracy and on the shape of the Constitution itself. Once the Constitution was ratified, corporations quickly sought to gain the rights it guaranteed. The first Supreme Court case on the rights of corporations was decided in 1809, a half-century before the first comparable cases on the rights of African Americans or women. Ever since, corporations have waged a persistent and remarkably fruitful campaign to win an ever-greater share of individual rights.Although corporations never marched on Washington, they employed many of the same strategies of more familiar civil rights struggles: civil disobedience, test cases, and novel legal claims made in a purposeful effort to reshape the law. Indeed, corporations have often been unheralded innovators in constitutional law, and several of the individual rights Americans hold most dear were first secured in lawsuits brought by businesses.Winkler enlivens his narrative with a flair for storytelling and a colorful cast of characters: among others, Daniel Webster, America's greatest advocate, who argued some of the earliest corporate rights cases on behalf of his business clients; Roger Taney, the reviled Chief Justice, who surprisingly fought to limit protections for corporations--in part to protect slavery; and Roscoe Conkling, a renowned politician who deceived the Supreme Court in a brazen effort to win for corporations the rights added to the Constitution for the freed slaves. Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, Huey Long, Ralph Nader, Louis Brandeis, and even Thurgood Marshall all played starring roles in the story of the corporate rights movement.In this heated political age, nothing can be timelier than Winkler's tour de force, which shows how America's most powerful corporations won our most fundamental rights and turned the Constitution into a weapon to impede the regulation of big business.

Author Notes

Adam Winkler is a professor at UCLA School of Law, where he specializes in American constitutional law. His scholarship has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, Atlantic, Slate, and Scotusblog.

New York Review of Books Review

BEHEMOTH: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World, by Joshua B. Freeman. (Norton, $27-95-) Freeman traces two centuries of factory production around the world in ways that are accessible, cogent, occasionally riveting and entirely new. The book should be required for all Americans. A FALSE REPORT: A True Story of Rape in America, by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong. (Crown, $28.) This is the story of a rape investigation - plainly and expertly told - in which the victim is bullied into recanting her story before evidence surfaces, years later, to prove she was telling the truth all along. RISE AND KILL FIRST: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman. (Random House, $35.) Bergman's fast-paced account of Israel's program to assassinate its enemies raises troubling moral and practical questions but also demonstrates that the tactic can be a highly effective tool against terrorist groups. WE THE CORPORATIONS: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights, by Adam Winkler. (Liveright, $28.95.) A law professor recounts the history of American companies' radical efforts to shape the law, with the result, he writes, that "today corporations have nearly all the same rights as individuals." THE FRIEND, by Sigrid Nunez. (Riverhead, $25.) The narrator of Nunez's wry novel inherits a Great Dane after her friend and mentor, an aging author, commits suicide. The novel suggests that something larger than writerly passion has been lost in our culture, but itself serves as a tribute to the values it holds dear. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? Essays, by Marilynne Robinson. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) The novelist's latest collection, featuring talks she gave over the past three years, elaborates an eloquent defense of America's democratic traditions and institutions, with a special focus on public universities, whose original mission, she reminds us, was to "democratize privilege." ETERNAL LIFE, by Dara Horn. (Norton, $25.95.) What are the downsides of living forever? Horn explores this idea through the story of Rachel, who has been alive for 2,000 years and is getting a little tired of it. "The hard part isn't living forever," she says. "It's making life worth living." BEAR AND WOLF, written and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. (Enchanted Lion, $17.95; ages 4 to 8.) Gorgeous, serene and philosophical, this picture book by the illustrator of "Dragons Love Tacos" features animal friends on a winter night's walk. THE RABBIT LISTENED, written and illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld. (Dial, $17.99; ages 4 to 8.) In this wonderful picture book, little Taylor's block tower falls. Everyone who passes gives advice, but a silent rabbit offers what's really needed: an understanding ear. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books